


In which there are scientists, shotguns, clothing stores, and pandas.

by virdant



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Pandas, pandas must be the angriest creatures on the planet, the nutritional value of bamboo is pretty much zero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-29
Updated: 2012-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-06 05:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/415301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pandas must be the angriest creatures on earth, since the food that they are adapted to eat provides pretty much 0 energy. They also are remarkably calm. Bruce Banner is totally a panda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In which there are scientists, shotguns, clothing stores, and pandas.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trell (qunlat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qunlat/gifts).



> So Selkath asked for the following: scientists with shotguns in a clothing store. My usual response to all prompts is to pick out the key words, throw them into the pot known as my brain, and hope something comes out. What came out of my brain was something along the lines of: panda panda panda panda panda. This is the story that resulted.

It starts on a Tuesday.

Bruce is used to being a packrat when it comes to clothing. He buys in bulk, leaves a set buried in plastic bags, and hopes that when he returns to being human-sized, it’ll be nearby one of his stashes and also hopes that Hulk remembered to pound his fists on the ground (around his stash, not directly on, because that’ll just pack the dirt in and there’s no way he’ll be able to dig up Hulk-smashed-dirt) in rage before giving up and falling asleep.

So when he wakes up one day in New York and opens his closet only to find a sign—written in red and gold ink, and he’ll have to figure out where Tony buys his pens because he thought that everything that Tony did was electronic these days—declaring that all of his pants and shirts have been burnt, the first thought Bruce has is that he’ll have to go back to China and make sure that Tony didn’t dig up all the roads in Chengdu because he’s pretty sure that there’s a road over where one of his stashes was.

Then he realizes that Tony doesn’t know that he spent a few years learning how to relax among the pandas.

After channeling his inner panda (the small bamboo plant that Tony’s put on the window sill to make the room a bit more zen looks remarkably tasty for a few minutes before he snaps out of it), he picks up the sign, folds it neatly into quarters, and sets off to find Tony to demand an explanation as to why he saw fit to burn all of his clothes.

*

By Wednesday, Bruce is very tired of not having a change of clothes.

It’s been a problem before, back when he was hiding from people. But then he usually wandered around until he found one of his clothing stashes and then dug it up and pulled it on and then moved on with his life.

His stash in New York had been previously stored in his closet.

For a moment, Bruce is really angry. He was a grad student for _years_ , and one never quite recovers from that trauma. Clothing is expensive—correction, food is expensive, clothing is something that you get from pretending to be an undergrad and attending events where they give out free T-shirts but the time that you spend pretending to be an undergrad is time that you could be doing research and—

Bruce takes a deep breath. He’s always angry, but usually he’s angry and _lazy_ , and right now he’s more angry than lazy and that’s not a good sign. Then he takes a deep breath, thinks of the nutritional value of bamboo (something like zero for very small values of zero), and calms down a bit. 

Then he finds Pepper and asks her for the address of the nearest clothing store.

*

On Thursday, Bruce has pants (thanks to Pepper), and a shirt (thanks to channeling his inner undergrad) and is standing outside a clothing store while Tony Stark tries to buy the whole chain.

Not having shoes is a problem in America.

Tony comes out in ten minutes with a pair of shoes. “They don’t have socks,” he declares in disgust, throwing the shoes (no socks) at Bruce. “I can’t believe they don’t carry socks.”

Bruce obligingly puts on the shoes. “We wouldn’t have this problem,” he says mildly, “if you hadn’t burned all of my clothes.” And shoes, he adds in his head. And socks. And—

Tony ignores him. “What clothing store doesn’t carry socks?” He marches into the middle of the street. Bruce follows and almost gets killed by a car.

Bruce thinks yearningly of the mountains of Sichuan, the rivers and lakes in Jiuzaigou, and bamboo. The ever-present hunger of pandas sets his blood boiling and calms him simultaneously.

He thinks of bamboo. Lots of bamboo.

*

When Bruce wakes up on Friday, it’s to a pile of socks.

A large pile of socks. Covering his whole room. It’s like an ocean of socks. He’s sleeping in an ocean of socks.

Once, Bruce thinks, poachers went around the mountains of Sichuan and shot pandas with shotguns. But he’ll die by socks. Slowly. He’ll suffocate and die right here in bed, because he’s being buried alive by socks. Starve from lack of food because there haven’t been any events on campus with free food that weren’t miles away—maybe not miles, but anything more than 10 steps away from lab is about 10 miles away.

The door springs open and a few socks trickle out. “Bruce!” It’s Tony. “How do you like your new wardrobe? I didn’t know what type you liked so I just bought everything.”

Bruce eyes the socks. “It’s very warm,” he finally says, and closes his eyes like a panda to sleep the rest of the week away.


End file.
